RE: Syria: Who are the White Helmets?

Your article articulated the points very well. I was generalizing by saying that "we need to agree on one thing." I meant that the public - or at least the informed public who watch and listen to connected, truthful sources, such as yourself - should collectively make these decisions.

As for the acronyms, they are used in the same way the US military uses them. They have different names for different branches, yet a lot of people still just refer to them as the "army." I was going from memory of the changing names and also the definition on Wikipedia (which I loathe using, in most cases):

"The Syrian Arab Armed Forces (Arabic: القوات المسلحة العربية السورية‎, French: Forces armées syriennes) are the military forces of the Syrian Arab Republic. They consist of the Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Navy, Syrian Arab Air Force, Syrian Arab Air Defense Force, and several paramilitary forces, such as the National Defence Force. According to the Syrian constitution, the President of Syria is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces."

So, it appears that SAA is also a generalization. SAA simply refers to the Army (Syrian Arab Army). SAF is the acronym that I've seen used most to combine all of these forces into one - Syrian Armed Forces.

See how this can get confusing to the general public? Things are likely called different things in different places - and translations also have an effect on this. I was by no means implying you were doing any of this through your article. To be clear, is was referring to the MSM and social media doing this - not you - and trying to support your facts, which were great.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Armed_Forces